Digital maps are getting increasingly popular to use in various applications for a user as the natural way to present the relationships between people, vehicles, animals, places, business or other points of interest in a geographical context.
Presentation of images with a position is used in many applications like Flickr and Panoramio.
When rendering or presenting multiple objects on a map, in particular when rendered together with a reference position, like the position of the user itself, is that if the zoom level in the map is set for rendering all the objects in the map, then the information level (e.g. geographical) becomes very low, which makes it hard to navigate in and relate to the map for the user.
There are various ways to mitigate this problem. One way is to display a miniature map with low zoom level together with a map with a high zoom level. Another way is to render an arrow on the map pointing in the direction where the reference position may be found. Yet another way is to render a list with the different objects and the map is re-rendered to cover various objects through selection of an object in the list that the map is to cover.
All these different ways have problems in relation to user friendliness, especially if the screen is relatively small. The typical problem is that the user “gets lost” in the map, which results in user frustration and dissatisfaction with the service providing the map.
Moreover, the existing solutions typically offer solutions that are directed towards a user relocating his or her position or finding out his or her position by adjusting zoom level and manually pan the map. Alternatively one or more objects may be highlighted.
There is therefore a need for improvement in this field of technology.